I must quickly assure you that A.A.'s tread innumerable paths in their quest for faith.

They have tried the way of faith and the way of no faith.

Finally, when all our score cards read 'zero,' and we saw that one more strike would put us out of the game forever, we had to look for our lost faith.

Our basic troubles are the same as everyone else's, but when an honest effort is made "to practice these principles in all our affairs," well-grounded A.A.'s seem to have the ability, by God's grace, to take these troubles in stride and turn them into demonstrations of faith.

Ordinarily we see these situations met with fortitude and faith.

When many hundreds of people are able to say that the consciousness of the Presence of God is today the most important fact of their lives, they present a powerful reason why one should have faith.

Arrived at this point, we were squarely confronted with the question of faith.

Some of us had already walked far over the Bridge of Reason toward the desired shore of faith.

Without knowing it, had we not been brought to where we stood by a certain kind of faith?

What was that but a sort of faith?

Imagine life without faith!

When we began to do that, we received the gift of faith, a faith which works.

Faith, to be sure, is necessary, but faith alone can avail nothing.

He may be an example of the truth that faith alone is insufficient.

And even those who had faith already often become conscious of God as they never were before.

By faith and by works we have been able to build upon the lessons of an incredible experience.

We were bothered with the thought that faith and dependence upon a Power beyond ourselves was somewhat weak, even cowardly.

True humility and an open mind can lead us to faith, and every A.A. meeting is an assurance that God will restore us to sanity if we rightly relate ourselves to Him.

Sometimes A.A. comes harder to those who have lost or rejected faith than to those who never had any faith at all, for they think they have tried faith and found it wanting.

Admit that he probably knows more about it than you do, but call to his attention the fact that however deep his faith and knowledge, he could not have applied it or he would not drink.

In one form or another we had been living by faith and little else.

So it is by circumstance rather than by any virtue that we have been driven to A.A., have admitted defeat, have acquired the rudiments of faith, and now want to make a decision to turn our will and our lives over to a Higher Power.

The faith and sincerity of both you and your husband will be put to the test.

They have tried the way of faith and the way of no faith.

Sometimes A.A. comes harder to those who have lost or rejected faith than to those who never had any faith at all, for they think they have tried faith and found it wanting.

All of them will tell you that, once across, their faith broadened and deepened.

'Damn this faith business!' we said.

Consider next the plight of those who once had faith, but have lost it.

Now let's take the guy full of faith, but still reeking of alcohol.

We have no desire to convince anyone that there is only one way by which faith can be acquired.

In this book you read again and again that faith did for us what we could not do for ourselves.

We have seen A.A.'s ask with much earnestness and faith for God's explicit guidance on matters ranging all the way from a shattering domestic or financial crisis to correcting a minor personal fault, like tardiness.

So, in one way or another, we discovered that faith had been involved all the time!

Faith has to work twenty-four hours a day in and through us, or we perish.

People of faith have a logical idea of what life is all about.

All men of faith have courage.

Then he asked for the grace to bring love, forgiveness, harmony, truth, faith, hope, light, and joy to every human being he could.

'You have faith,' I said.

For just so long as we were convinced that we could live exclusively by our own individual strength and intelligence, for just that long was a working faith in a Higher Power impossible.

For faith in a Power greater than ourselves, and miraculous demonstrations of that power in human lives, are facts as old as man himself.

We finally saw that faith in some kind of God was a part of our make-up, just as much as the feeling we have for a friend.

Few people really are, for that means blind faith in the strange proposition that this universe originated in a cipher and aimlessly rushes nowhere.

Surely you can have faith in them.

Can we have the same kind of confidence and faith in these people who have been infected and sometimes crippled by our own illness that we have in our sponsors?

This faith is for you, too."

Hence we are at pains to tell why we think our present faith is reasonable, why we think it more sane and logical to believe than not to believe, why we say our former thinking was soft and mushy when we threw up our hands in doubt and said, "We don't know."

Obviously, the dilemma of the wanderer from faith is that of profound confusion.

This was not only faith; it was faith that worked under all conditions.

The verdict of the ages is that faith means courage.

To be vital, faith must be accompanied by self sacrifice and unselfish, constructive action.

We saw that we were powerless over alcohol, but we also perceived that faith of some kind, if only in A.A. itself, is possible to anyone.

In money matters we had faith only in ourselves, and not too much of that.

We represent no particular faith or denomination.

It was impossible to say we had no capacity for faith, or love, or worship.

This answer has to do with the quality of faith rather than its quantity.

We are not allied with any particular faith, sect or denomination, nor do we oppose anyone.

'Perhaps far deeper faith than mine.

Sometimes A.A. comes harder to those who have lost or rejected faith than to those who never had any faith at all, for they think they have tried faith and found it wanting.

Without it, they cannot live to much useful purpose, or, in adversity, be able to summon the faith that can meet any emergency.

If we do not do so, we shall stand convicted of emotional sterility and of having lost the faith that moves mountains, without which medicine can do little.

The Wright brothers' almost childish faith that they could build a machine which would fly was the mainspring of their accomplishment.

"Lord, make me a channel of thy peace -- that where there is hatred, I may bring love -- that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness -- that where there is discord, I may bring harmony -- that where there is error, I may bring truth -- that where there is doubt, I may bring faith -- that where there is despair, I may bring hope -- that where there are shadows, I may bring light -- that where there is sadness, I may bring joy.

This was not only faith; it was faith that worked under all conditions.

Can A.A. experience tell all these they may still find a faith that works?

It reads: "This is the way to a faith that works."

Each needed to consider the others, and in abiding faith they knew they must find their real strength.

Faith, to be sure, is necessary, but faith alone can avail nothing.

Any number of A.A.'s can say to the drifter, "Yes, we were diverted from our childhood faith, too.

This phony form of respectability was our undoing, so far as faith was concerned.

Besides a seeming inability to accept much on faith, we often found ourselves handicapped by obstinacy, sensitiveness, and unreasoning prejudice.

Some of us won't believe in God, others can't, and still others who do believe that God exists have no faith whatever He will perform this miracle.

But I cannot accept as surely true the many articles of faith which are so plain to him."

Without a searching and fearless moral inventory, most of us have found that the faith which really works in daily living is still out of reach.

That was great news to us, for we had assumed we could not make use of spiritual principles unless we accepted many things on faith which seemed difficult to believe.

When we began to do that, we received the gift of faith, a faith which works.

Even this minimum of faith will be enough.

Now we need more action, without which we find that "Faith without works is dead."

"Faith without works is dead."

Faith without works was dead, he said.

Then faith would be dead indeed.

We can have faith, yet keep God out of our lives.